Rollin' THUNDER

NO Limits Half Marathon

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Location:

Seven Hills,Oh,U.S.A.

Member Since:

Aug 31, 2010

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Age Division Winner

Running Accomplishments:

Toenails Lost: 2.5

Qualified for Boston:

  • TOU    9/17/11 3:09:49
  • TOU    9/15/12 3:04:38

13 Marathons: 3:04:38

7 Half Marathons 1:21:11

1 15k 1:02:08

Short-Term Running Goals:

Stop being fat and start running again. I want to turn my short term goal into a habit of running instead of being a crappy seasonal runner.

 

Long-Term Running Goals:

Find time for School, Family, and Running while in Podiatry school.

Beat LA

 

 

Personal:

I've been married since January 2008 to my biggest fan, and best friend. We have 3 kids, Mackson, Kaylin, and Linclon. I am from Utah, but now live in Ohio (since July 2015) for Podiatry School.

My Wife

Click to donate
to Ukraine's Armed Forces
Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
New Balance Lifetime Miles: 209.00
Total Distance
42.20
Weight: 163.50
Race: NO Limits Half Marathon (12.9 Miles) 01:32:48, Place overall: 3, Place in age division: 2
Total Distance
16.00

This race went way better than I could have ever predicted. In January and February I was really training hard, too hard. My knees started getting sore and I had to get some cortisone shots. I then decided to take a little time off from running and play basketball to get a break and let me knees rest. I was planning on a week, maybe two weeks of rest. I got some ribs broken which made breathing painful and running next to impossible. So I ended up taking much more time off than I had anticipated/wanted.

We moved, I got a job that really sucks my running motivation out of me. My training hasn't been there. I went into this race knowing that my training was poor at best, and I might argue that it was down right awful. My Parents and Wife kept talking about my "race", I had to remind them that I was not in shape to race and that this was just going to be a medium distance run for training for UVM on June 13th.

This is a hard course that has about 4.5 miles of trails, and many really steep and long hills. From 1.5 miles to 2.1 miles there is a 245' hill. Then at 3.3 miles to 4.1 miles it goes up another 235'. Its a hard course. But I have found that I get a greater feeling of accomplishment on the tougher courses.

The race started on time, which is always nice, especially since I took some caffeine pills to give me a little extra boost during the race. Jon Heslop and Ben Van Beekum took off at the start. I knew I couldn't keep up with them even if I hadn't missed 1.5-2 months of training. I let them go, but somehow found myself in 3rd place in a race that I wasn't planning on racing at all. Unfortunately that only lasted for about a mile. I was passed by 3 guys before we got to 1.5 miles. When the first one passed me I started to go with him for 2 or 3 seconds, but I caught myself and reminded myself that I was not racing and I didn't want to do something stupid this early on a tough course, so I let him go. Soon after, 2 more guys passed me and I didn't even think of going with them.

We got to the hill at mile 1.5 and I was about 40' behind 3rd place and 20' behind 5th, but I was fine with that. After about .1 miles I noticed they were coming back and I felt like I wasn't working too hard on this really steep hill. It must have been my incredibly well rested legs :) . By the time I reached the top of the hill, I had passed all 3 guys and had about a 30' lead on the 4th place guy. I thought about going hard on the somewhat flat trail for the next 1.1 miles and putting some distance between us. I again had to remind myself that I WAS NOT RACING I was just running, so I used the flat trail to recover from the hill.

At 3.3 miles the 4th place guy was now about 80' behind me, so he had been recovering as well. I started up the hill and quickly felt how out of shape I was. I contemplated walking for a bit, but kept going. I got the the top of the hill, and the 4th place guy had closed the gap a bit and was now only about 40' behind me.

4 miles into the run is where I decided I was no longer just running, but that I was going to race and try to take 3rd overall. I knew the worst of the hills were over and that I could push myself for 9 miles.

For the next 1.4 miles the 4th place guy kept closing the gap I had on him. I couldn't see 5th or 6th, so I didn't worry about them. At about 5.4 miles we got back on trails. I have run on trails very few times (maybe 3 or 4 times in 7 years), but I have liked it every time. I pushed a little harder on the trails, hoping to increase my lead. I looked back and saw that in very little time I had really increased the lead.

Right around mile 6 the trail starts going down hill. It loses about 250' in half a mile. I lengthened my stride and let gravity pull me down. This was the last spot I saw the 4th place guy. I kept pushing and hoping that I was on the right course. There was one point where I had to run around a locked gate (which ended up being the right trail).

Around mile 9 my calfs started cramping up. Nothing major but it was annoying and I thought about stretching them out for a minute. I just changed how I was landing on my feet. I had been landing on the ball of my foot, but changed to landing mid foot and the cramps went away. They only came back once or twice over the next 4 miles.

The last 5 or 6 miles were really  uneventful, just running and following arrows. I started passing 5k runners with about 1 mile to go, that helped pull me in a little faster.

They only awarded the overall winners (but left them in their age divisions) and top 3 of each age division. I was hoping for a 3rd overall ribbon, but I guess a 2nd age division is good too. I ended up about 15 minutes behind 2nd overall and 16 minutes behind 1st overall. I was the first finisher that isn't a sponsored runner, for some reason I am taking a little bit of pride in that.

I also one a $30 gift card in the raffle that my wife and I can use on a date night.

After the award ceremony I ran an additional 3.1 miles to give me 16 total for the day.

 

Weight: 164.00
Comments(2)
Race: Ogden Marathon (26.2 Miles) 03:10:43
Total Distance
26.20

Last Saturday I only ran 6 miles. My legs were still sore from the half marathon on May 2nd, and I just wasn't feeling it. When I decided that my long run for the week was not even close to a long run, I knew I could be in serious trouble for Utah Valley marathon next month. I decided I'd look for someone desperate to sell their Ogden marathon bib, that way I'd be forced to get my first "long run" in since before my knees got hurt in February.

I texted all the people on KSL trying to sell their bibs and offered them all $30 for their bib. I was hoping someone would be smart enough to take $30 rather than losing their entire entrance fee. Luckily a few people said they'd take it. I decided to take the kids that said he would meet me at the expo. He wanted everything out of the bag except the bib. I was fine with that since I have plenty of shirts, and don't really need samples and ads that I wouldn't use anyways.

My goal was to start slow and maybe push a little towards the end if I was feeling good. I had wanted to run 7:20's-7:30's for the race. I took a 100 mg of caffeine 45 minutes before the race, a peanut butter gu and 200 mg caffeine 15 minutes before the race, chocolate outrage gu's at 45 minutes, 90 minutes and 160 minutes, and an espresso love gu at 125 minutes. I drank water and/or powerade at just about every aid station. This worked well and I felt good through the entire run.

For the first 9 or 10 miles I had to keep telling myself to slow down. I wasn't going way too fast, but I was about 10 seconds faster per mile than I wanted, and I didn't want to blow up at the end.

I came through the half at 1:35:17. I started to think that maybe I could start pushing a little sooner than I had planned and see if I could negative split by 5 minutes and get a new PR. Luckily I was smart and just stuck the plan. I don't know if I could have PR'd, but I didn't want to make my recovery take too long and then have done more harm than good for Utah Valley.

The hills from 14-17.5 seemed waaay easier than in years past. I don't know why, I haven't done any hill training since maybe Februaury, and my training hasn't been very good at all. Unfortunately the weather wasn't in our favor for any tail wind down the canyons (at least I didn't notice any) so I din't have much of a push where I was hoping to pick up some time. At one point around mile 20 I even felt a head wind for a couple of minutes.

The second half was 1:35:26, 9 seconds slower than the first half. I didn't push too hard, and didn't let the race atmosphere force me into doing something I didn't want to do. Overall I am extremely satisfied with this "long run." I don't know what I placed overall or in my age division. I didn't run with the timing chip because I bought the bib from a kid in a different age group and I didn't want to mess up placings (not that I was expecting to place, but just in case). I have messed up placings before by running with someone elses chip, and I don't want to do that again.

Hopefully I can get 2 or 3 weeks of good training in and then set a PR at Utah Valley. I am hoping that the conditions will be in our favor then, but they certainly can't be any worse than they were today.

Here are my splits:

1 7:18

2 7:14

3 7:05

4 7:10

5 7:13

6 7:12

7 7:10

8 7:13

9 7:19

10 7:19

11 7:20

12 7:27

13 7:29

         13.1 1:35:17

14 7:14

15 7:22

16 7:11

17 7:11

18 6:55

19 7:10

20 7:11

21 7:03

22 7:03 I started to get some cramps around here in both calfs and ham strings. Luckily nothing too bad, but it still wasn't super fun to have to worry about a bad cramp coming.

23 7:07

24 7:25

25 7:34

26 7:44

.2 1:52 (7:57 pace), second half 1:35:26

Total 3:10:43

Avg pace of 7:16

Total distance was 26.24. Up until mile 13, right as I passed the mile marker, my watch would hit the mile. I was running tangents pretty well, and this is by far the closest my watch has been to the "certified" race distance.

Weight: 163.00
Comments(1)
Total Distance
42.20
Weight: 163.50
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